Sitting alone in my car at 1:00 A.
M. in the deserted hospital parking garage, the doctor's words about my
father's near fatal condition echoed in my skull: "He's not responding to
the medicine. He needs to be kept as
comfortable as possible." My
father's congestive heart failure was causing him to fill with fluid, drowning
him under his skin, each added ounce causing his heart to run out of steam,
like wheels slipping in place. The
doctor's countenance, his forced half-smile, his hushed tones in his speech
trying to comfort us all added up to his assuredness of my father's
demise. The night was going to be
long. And so I did what everyone else
does in the grips of foxhole faith, I called out to God. "Please, give me something, anything to
let me know that he's going to be okay," I said, my head down and my hands
on the steering wheel, squeezing so tightly as though I were forcing God to
listen.
When my heart slowed and I could see
again, I turned the engine on, rolled down the windows to let the summer air
in, and from the radio speakers began the first electric chords of The Beatles'
song "It's Getting Better All the Time." Anyone who knows me well knows that I am
Beatles fan, as in the "fan" in fanatic. And it is that fanaticism that has kept me
well attuned to what popular Beatles songs are played on the radio. "It's Getting Better All the Time"
is not one of those songs. It gets very
little play in comparison to the dozens of other hits they had: Hey Jude, Let
It Be, Strawberry Fields Forever, et. al.
So because it was this song at this moment, I knew one thing for
certain-God was speaking to me. He was
picking a language I would understand.
It seemed a little heavy handed; I thought God was a little more
cryptic, but I wasn't about to argue. I
drove home and slept, peacefully, knowing that this wasn't the end.
The pastor at my church once said
that faith is the opposite of our instincts.
We must see something to believe it, yet for faith we must first
believe, then we will see it. That's
pretty tough for so many of us, the belief in things unseen. So I know that there are those who say that
God's talking to me through The Beatles is a pretty broad leap. Still, sitting in that car, I experienced
that X factor, that absolute rightness stemming from a total lack of
rationality. And that was fine by me.
Arriving at the hospital the next
morning, my sister was already in the ICU.
There was an energy in the room that was palpable, a surging
charge. My sister rushed to me,
spouting, "The doctor said in the night Dad just suddenly began
responding. Fluid was draining out in
healthy quantities." However, the
doctor later added that there were too many factors beyond just being 79 for
Dad to recover and live beyond Christmas.
We were convinced otherwise.
After a cafeteria buffet breakfast,
my sister and I sat on a lobby bench to process the morning. Reticently, I recanted details that unfolded
nine hours earlier. When I reached the
crux of the moment, telling her how I deduced that God had picked a language to
speak to me, cleverly employing a Beatles song as some sort of divine conduit,
her head was tipped to one side and her eyes were piercing into my face. "Stop!" she demanded. And then she recanted the details of her
morning.
After driving home from the
hospital, she pulled into her driveway, turned off her van, and sat there, not
yet allowing herself to go inside. In
the pounding silence of the early morning, she called out to God as I had,
"Please, give me something, anything to let me know that he's going to be
okay." As her van began to warm up,
and not ready to walk, my sister started the engine for the cool air of the air
conditioner. Her radio had been on when
she had stopped, so after the engine turned over, a song was beginning. The words began to bore through the stratum
of her prayer. It was Bob Dylan, telling
her, "Don't think twice; it's alright." As she listened, a comforting peace began to
gently knead her. When the song was
done, she cut the engine, went inside, and slept.
My sister and I were of the same mind,
thinking that God's media were not that conspicuous. But why not?
Why can't God just chuck a brick at our heads when He wants a quick
communiqué? And so we sat there, gaping
at one another, just as affirmed as we were spooked.
A year later, at my father's 80th
birthday celebration, Louis Armstrong crooned What a Wonderful World, to which
my father, or the "miracle man" as one doctor called him, and stepmother
danced, smiling, breathing with clear lungs.
I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't believed it.
